Best Holiday Lettings

Category: News

  • Westin Hotels to open 200th hotel in 2013

    Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide announced that its Westin brand expects to open its 200th hotel in 2013, driven by robust international demand and the exceptional success of the brand’s distinct wellbeing positioning. Westin will open 11 new hotels this year, the overwhelming majority outside the u. s. in fast-growing markets including China, India, Singapore and Panama.

    In line with global growth trends, the Westin brand is experiencing a surge in new hotel openings across Asia Pacific. Seven new Westin hotels will open in Asia Pacific in 2013, increasing the brand’s portfolio to almost 50 hotels within the region by year’s end. Fuelling the brand’s growth inside the region is the rapid economic growth in China’s second and third-tier cities. New Westin hotel openings in China this year include The Westin Haikou, The Westin Sanya Haitang Bay Resort, The Westin Chongqing Liberation Square and The Westin Qingdao.  Westin may even make its return to Singapore with the outlet of The Westin Singapore Marina Bay in late 2013.

    Demand for brand new Westin hotels in Latin America is likewise heating up. In exactly the past 18 months, Westin has grown its footprint in Latin America by nearly 50% as portion of the brand’s strategic expansion within the region’s fastest growing markets. This year’s opening of The Westin Panama increases the Westin portfolio in Latin America to 11 hotels, spanning five countries including Panama, Mexico, Peru, Costa Rica and Guatemala.

    In North America, the Westin brand will add four new hotels to its portfolio this year.  As well as the hole of The Westin Birmingham, Westin may be attracting a growing share of conversion opportunities in cities around the USA, with The Westin Houston Downtown, The Westin Sacramento and The Westin San Jose all opening in 2013, following renovations.

  • News: Vayant’s Pricing Cache brings even greater flexiblity to travel sellers

    Vayant Travel Technologies, a global leader in B2B airfare search innovation, today announced the launch of the most recent version of Pricing Cache, its cache export solution for Online Travel Agents (OTAs), Tour Opertors (TOs) and Airlines.

    Announced at the eve of Vayant’s attendance at ITB Berlin 2013, Pricing Cache V2.0 makes Vayant’s custom cache solution much more flexible. Travel retailers be capable of fine tune their customer’s travel shopping experience through a comprehensive set of parameters that consistently deliver accurate air search results.

    Pricing Cache can support any market cache on a global-wide basis, corresponding to market-driven cache, country, cross-country and continent-scale cache.

    New features of Pricing Cache V2.0 include for every origin and destination combination support for multiple passenger types and different fare classes in one cache. Travel retailers may also specify maximum connection times, airports, airlines, routes, and define the number and sort of search leads to their respective cache.

    Pricing Cache’s unique and proven technology now enables updates as much as 24 times an afternoon.  The power to refresh the cache in the course of the day means travel retailers enjoy the cost effectiveness of caching without compromising on accuracy.  The answer delivers, on average, 75 per cent or greater bookability (versus a maximum of 40 to 60 per cent for rival offers).

    Boyan Manev, Director Business Development and Product Marketing at Vayant, said: “We are constantly working to complement our solutions and stay sooner than the contest. We must ensure travel retailers have fast, cost-effective the way to provide their customers with essentially the mostsome of the most relevant offers available. With Pricing Cache V2.0, travel retailers can define go searching their customer’s needs more tightly than ever before.  All of it adds as much as a wiser customer experience.”

    First launched in July 2012, Vayant Pricing Cache is getting used by travel retailers including Hotelplan, travel.at, HLX and Binoli.

  • News: Hotel pipeline growth in Africa accelerates

    Research by W Hospitality Group, the award-winning consultancy and among the many founding members of Hotel Partners Africa (HPA), reveals that the variety of planned new hotel rooms within the Hotel Development Pipeline in Africa has increased by 16 per cent on last year, which was 12 per cent up on 2011.  It’s in accordance with a sample of 29 international hotel chains, with 59 brands between them, and analyses deals that they’ve signed with owners.

    As in previous years, the detail behind the headline shows a different tale of 2 Africas. In North Africa, the event pipeline grew by 9 per cent, from 17,217 planned new hotelrooms in 2012 to 18,782 rooms in 77 hotels in 2013.  In sub-Saharan Africa, however, the chains’ pipeline now stands at 21,052 rooms in 130 hotels, up from 17,109 rooms in 100 hotels a year ago – an immense 23 per cent increase.  This compares to 4 per cent growth in Europe and eight.6 per cent growth in Asia Pacific, in line with data produced by STR Global (although the expansion in Africa is from a far lower base).

    Trevor Ward, Managing Director of W Hospitality Group said: “The main reasons for the slower growth in North Africa include the outlet of hotels within the 2012 pipeline, particularly in Algeria, a discounted investment specialise in North Africa because of political concerns and a better emphasis on development in sub-Saharan markets.

    “There is a boom in Africa, in all sectors, including hotels.  Economic growth in lots of countries is 6 per cent or higher and global investors are the continent in a far more serious and complex way.  We’re being contacted by a growing number of dedicated investment funds looking to enter the African hotel market.”

    The five countries of North Africa all appear within the top ten countries for brand new hotels, led by Egypt (7,644 planned new hotel rooms), Morocco (5,178) and Algeria (3,160).  In sub-Saharan Africa, Nigeria has by far the most important pipeline, with 7,470 planned new rooms.  The firms leading the way in which are Hilton Worldwide with 6,230 rooms in its African pipeline, Carlson Rezidor with 5,947, Accor with 5,165 and Marriott with 3,900.

    Said Ward: “The major international brands are still blazing the path, led by Hilton Worldwide, forging ahead with 6,230 planned new rooms for Hilton, Doubletree and Garden Inn brands, a rare 84% increase on 2012.  And it is very encouraging to determine new brands entering the market, including Campanile, Dusit, easyHotel, Fairmont, Hyatt Place and W.  This shows the boldness of the hotel chains not only inside the continent conceptually, but additionally as somewhere where they are able to diversify their brand footprint.”

    W Hospitality Group and Hotel Partners Africa released the report on the official launch of HPA to spotlight its deep understanding of the hotel sector in Africa.  HPA is a brand new consultancy formed by four pre-eminent consultants to the hotel industry in Africa – Trevor Ward and Vernon Page of Lagos-based W Hospitality Group, David Harper of Leisure Property Services (UK) and Mark Martinovic of Hotel Spec (South Africa and Dubai).  Together they’re offering their clients an unparalleled range of services through the lifecycle of a hotel venture in Africa, from feasibility & market studies, valuations,sourcing funding & finance, development management and procurement, to asset management and sales.

  • News: Hear from the long run travel leaders of tomorrow today

    World Travel Market, the leading global event of the travel industry, today launches futuretravelleaders.TV, a dedicated channel featuring the travel and tourism’s rising stars of today and tomorrow’s industry leaders.

    FutureTravelLeaders.TV follows on from the hugely successful decisionmakers.tv and destinationleaders.tv, profiling the movers and shakers, senior executives and heads of Tourist Boards and giving them the platform to talk about their challenges and key trends available to buy. All three online TV channels offer a chain of exclusive video interviews, delivered weekly, all year round.

    The stars of futuretravelleaders.tv was recommend by their senior managers, who’re all profiled on sister TV station decisionmakers.tv.

    The new online TV station kicks off today with an interview from Paul Lau, Performance Marketing Specialist of Teletext Holidays. Lau joined Teletext two years ago from outside the travel industry, this has allowed him to consistently challenge ‘industry norms’. Lau gives a fast overview of the corporate, his role at Teletext Holidays and the way the product is evolving.

    Each week young travel industry high fliers will speak to futuretravelleaders.tv about their current business, the market and the way they see the travel and tourism industry.

    Other successful future leaders set to seem on futuretravelleaders.tv over the following couple of weeks include:

    • Simon Applebaum, Online Manager, Affinion International Travel
    • Chris Dalrymple, Head of Ecommerce, At the Beach
    • Julia Lo Bue Said, Leisure Director, Advantage
    • Patrick Haller, Head of Process Improvement, Thomson
    • Rochelle Read Senior, Ecommerce Manager, Expedia.com
    • John-Christian Moquette, Founding Partner, IAVRA
    • Gemma Pyatt, Operations Manager, Blue Bay Travel

    Reed Travel Exhibitions Head of selling and Communications World Travel Market Micaela Juarez said: “I am delighted to be launching futuretravelleaders.tv following on from the success of both decisionmakers.tv and destinationleaders.tv.

    “Futuretravelleaders.tv hosts the thoughts and opinions of these set to shape the way forward for this constantly evolving industry and it’s great in order to share this with the sector Travel Market audience.

    “We hope that decisionmakers.tv, destinationleaders.tv and the newly launched futuretravelleaders.tv will offer excellent vision and insight benefiting the industry all year round.”

  • Centara goes mobile with iPhone and Android apps

    Centara Hotels&Resorts has launched a mobile-optimized website and iPhone and Android apps with the intention to enable anyone to envision room availability and book online using their smartphone.

    The apps can be found at Apple Apps Store for iPhone, and Google Play for Android.

    “We are more than happy to announce this new user experience, which adds tremendous flexibility to our very strong online presence,” said Chris Bailey, Senior Vice chairman for Sales and Marketing at Centara Hotels&Resorts.

    “Our research has shown there’s enormous potential support for this service, and it brings the total range of Centara properties and services right onto your mobile.”

    There is not any fee for downloading the apps, with a view to enable anyone to browse the complete range of Centara properties internationally.

    The mobile site apps will check the provision of rooms, allow easy online booking, and provides access to all Centara news and promotions.

    Centara Hotels&Resorts is Thailand’s leading operator of hotels, with 40 deluxe and primary-class properties covering your entire major tourist destinations within the Kingdom. yet another 18 resorts inside the Maldives, Vietnam, Bali Indonesia, Sri Lanka, and Mauritius Indian Ocean, brings the existing total to 58 properties. Brands and properties within Centara make sure that specific categories equivalent to couples, families, individuals, and meetings and incentives groups will all discover a hotel or resort that may be appropriate to their needs.

    Centara operates 27 branches of Spa Cenvaree, one among Thailand’s most magnificent and innovative spa brands, including its newly-launched value brand Cense by Spa Cenvaree, which gives core spa services for busy travelers. The company’s Kids’ Club is obtainable in any respect the family-friendly resorts with the intention that the kids and youths are treated. Centara Hotels&Resorts also operates two state-of-the-art convention centers in Bangkok, and two in northeastern Thailand, one being located in Udon Thani and the alternative in Khon Kaen.

    The latest Centara brand is called COSI Hotels, an economy brand designed for travelers who predominantly make their bookings via the web and who want comfort and convenience on the most friendly prices available, that’s under development with the 1st property as a result of open in 2015.